The Moon of Liberty

England Vs South Africa

Venue - Stade De France, Paris

Saturday 20th October, Kick Off 8.00pm

The most unlikely of World Cup Finals produced a fairly dull game in terms of a spectical, but with the World Championship at stake, only the result mattered. England, the defending champions and back from the dead after the humilaiting 36-0 defeat by the same South African opponents only four weeks ago, were one more shock away from retaining the title. The South African began favouirtes and were looking for their title back after the 1995 triumph on home soil.

The momentum was with England, after surprise wins over Austrlia and the hosts France, but they began tentatively making a few mistakes. England's lineout began to creak as South Africa took the first two lineout, Pat Matfield won the first, for it it was the start of an awesome night that made Englands prospects harder the longer the game went

Kicking was a major feature of the game, as it has been so often in this world cup. Both sides looking to exploit the high ball and force the error, rarely did it though as Jason Robinson in his last game for England, and South Africa's Percy Montgomery at full back for South Africa, were up to the task again and again.

A slip by Matthew Tait lead to the first points, he then hung on tot he ball too long for the referee's liking and Montgomery slotted the penalty. England hit back to level after forcing a penalty after finally managin to create problems with a high ball which lead to a ruck in which the Springboks desperate defense infringed, Wilkinson levelled the scores at 3-3.

For the remainder of the half South Africa began to take command. England got in range for a missed Wilkinson drop goal attempt, but from then on the clincal power of South Africa began to tell. Francois Steyn along with Montgomery began find the gaps, Butch James' kicking game began to gain the terrirory. The Boks scored two more penalties and missed another in this dominant period before the break. As the whistle went for half time South Africa were in a 9-3 lead but looking more comfortable than that.

As the second half started Enlgnad needed some magic, and they found it through Matthew Tait, he created a break out of nothing, England for the first time got behind South Africa with some quick ball sending Mark Cueto towards the corner. Was he in for the try? The ref went to the video ref, after around four minutes of looking at a series of angles it was very difficult to tell if Cueto had been taken into touch by the tackle of Danny Rousseau, or if Cueto got the ball down in time. In the end the ref dissalllowed the try, he had already given a penalty which Wilkinson duely slotted over, but despite bringing the game back to 9-6, this incident took the stuffing out of England.

From that point it was almost as if South Africa had scored a try of their own, it was their confidence that grew and England begin to look like a team whose chance had gone. South Africa quickly landed another penalty and from their did nothing fancy and played territory to run down the clock. As England became desperate trying to run from anywhere to try and salvage the game, an attempted short chip by mark Cueto saw him fall foul of an obstruction which gave South Africa a long range penalty. Francois Steyn stepped up and nailed the kick, and the World Cup with it for South Africa.

England became more desperate, South Africa classily resisted the tempatation to rub it in, and played sensible conservative, risk free rugby to finish off the game. The triumph for South African coach jake White and his men was complete. The cup was heading back to South Africa, the Springboks are deserved champions of the rugby world once again.

RESULT

England ............ (3) 6   South Africa ....... (9) 15

England - Pens (Wilkinson 2)

South Africa - Pens (Montgomery 4, Steyn)

MOON OF LIBERTY STAR MAN - Percy Montgomery (South Africa) - This game was primarily about kicking, so the key was the battle between Montgomery and Wilkinson, the huge experince and calm of Montgomery won the day, that with his 12 points, are huge reasons why South Africa are World Champions again.

FA Carling Premiership

Everton Vs Liverpool

Sat 20th October 2007

Venue - Goodison Park - Kick off 12.30 pm

A lunchtime kick off for what would prove to be a quite incredible Merseyside derby. Everton could go level with Liverpool on points with a win to maintain their good start to the season. Liverpool on the other hand, having slipped 6 points behind the leaders Arsenal, could ill afford any further slip ups at this stage.

Liverpool started the better with some fast passing early that Everton had no answer too. Benayoun looked lively on the left hand side and he pulled a cross back the the Ukrainian Vornin could not finish off.

Slowly through the first half Everton gradually got to grips with Liverpool's midfield sytem, this lead to a degree of stalemate with Everton gradually forcing a couple of corners and taking control, without hugely threatening the goal of Reina.

Then out of very little came first blood. An Arteta corner for Everton was only half cleared, the Stubbs knocked it back in the danger zone and Sami Hyypia instinctively stuck out a leg directing the ball agonisingly into his own net. After the shaky start Everton had the goal they wanted.

GOAL - 38 Minutes - Own Goal (Hyypia) - Everton 1 Liverpool 0

Without really threatening again Everton saw out the rest of the first half to take a deserved lead into the break. The second half was more of the same, Everton possession, pressure without huge threat, and Liverpool struggling to find any rythem. Everton were looking good to repeat their derby win of a year ago.

That then all suddenyl changed out of nowhere. Everton had a corner and Liverpool had left nobody up the pitch, an unlikely position for Everton to be in trouble from, but then enter Steven Gerrard. The corner was cleared and Gerrard stormed out of nowhere to be available to collect a through pass from Kuyt on the break, he was clean through with Hibbert in pursuit, at the key moment Hibbert brought down Gerrard and the referee gave the penalty, sending Hibbert off. From being comfotable 20 seconds ago, they were a man down and Liverpool had the cahnce to level the score, Kuyt stepped up and calmly obliged, equalising and giving Liverpool over half an hour with the extra man to try and win it.

GOAL - 53 Minutes - Dirk Kuyt (Pen) - Everton 1 Liverpool 1

Everton dispite the problems hit back and when Finnen had his hands on Julien Lescott, they thought, correctly, they should have had a penalty, the ref waved it away however. Then Liverpool looked to make their extra man count, Risse shot over the bar and Voronin should have done better when having a shot blocked by Tim Howard.

With Liverpool in control their manager, Benitez, mystified everyone. He decided to take Steven Gerrard off, the crowd, the players and Gerrard himself looked bemused, in his place came inexperienced Brazilian Lucas Leiva. The surprise substituation gave Everton a life, they began to keep possession better, gained some terriroty and shut out Liverpool's man advantage.

So could Everton hold out for an unlikely draw. The 4th offical held up three minutes of stoppage time, this galvanised Liverpool again. They set up one last attack. After a cross had caused confusion the aforementioned Lieva calmly put the ball passed Tim Howard, only for Phil Neville to handball it on the line. to stop it going in. The ref awareded another penalty in stoppage time, and had no option but to send Neville off. Everton down to nine men. Kuyt stepped up for the penalty, it looked like Howard got there but it skipped under his body and Liverpool had pulled it off.

GOAL - 91 Minutes - Dirk Kuyt (Pen) - Everton 1 Liverpool 2

Everton were not done however, they launched one alst attack, Lescott tangled with Carragher, this was less clear cut, but Everton again believed they had been denied a penalty as the ref waved the protests away. Then the final whistle brought a breathless game to an end. Everton feeling they had been cheated on derby day, Liverpool celebrating as if they had won the league itself, they will have to play better than this to do that, but today was all about the result, and the reds got it by a whisker.

RESULT

Everton        (1) 1 (Own Goal Hyypia 38)

Liverpool     (0) 2 (Kuyt 53 pen, 91 pen)

MOON OF LIBETY STAR MAN - Dirk Kuyt (Liverpool) - After a tough start to the season to step up and score two peanlties takes bottle, and he had it. Maybe Gordon Brown should take lessons.

 

Stardust (2007)

Starring - Charlie Cox, Claire Danes, Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sienna Miller,

Directed By - Matthew Vaughn

Billed as the fairytale that wont behave, not quite sure about that, their is an old fashioned feel about this film which leads it to be very some, on occasion too well, behaved. A fun film with many flaws too, Stardust will be a film that is a question of taste.

The plot does have an old fairytale feel. A wall divides England and Stormhold. Whena young mand crosses the wall and has a liaison with a lady on the other side, it produces a son, Triston. Triston is brought up in England until he is older, we then flash forward to Triston pusuing his love, Victoria (Sienna Miller) who is cold and shows little interest, but agrees to marry him if he crosses the wall and brings back the jewel from the star they see cross the wall for her birthday.

This leads Triston (Charlie Cox) to Stormhold. The star turns out to be a beautiful woman (Claire Danes) called Yvaine. The search for the start is joined by the son of the king of Stormhold, Septimus (Mark Stong) who needs the star to become the new king as his father is on his deathbed. Just to add to the mayhem, a witch named Lamia (Michelle Pfieffer) is also after the star as if she cuts the heart out of the start she will obtain eternal youth.

So a three way race for the star, and in Triston's case to get it back to the other side of the wall is on. However, during the journey he realises his true love is actually Yvaine and not Victoira who is only interested in material things. The end game produces a startling revelation reagrding the true aire of Stormhold that changes the situation completely, and gives Triston the chance of true happyness by staying on the Stormhold side of the wall, if the others don't take the star first of course.

This is all very nice and lovely, and a perfect date movie. We also got an amusing interlude by Robert De Niro playing the at first glance tough but in reality not, Captain Shakespeare of the ship that sails the skys. Ricky Gervais also makes an appearence pretty much playing himself. It's a nice, heart warming fairy tale of the days of old, nothing uniquely special about it and the relationship between Danes and Cox does not really spark, although Cox does a good job playing the gallant young man. I enjoyed Mark Storng's performance as Prince Septimus, Pfieffer was less convincing.

Overall good fluffy stuff, nothing special, but a nice film for a nice night out.

MOON OF LIBERTY VERDICT - RATING 'B'  - A 'B' rating on the A+ to F scale means good, and that sums this up perfectly. Lovers of fantasy, adventure type films may rate it more highly, if you want a more seriously acted film, stay away.